May 4, 1970, Four Kent State University Students Killed By Ohio National Guard - Today In Crime History - DeThomasis and Buchanan | Gainesville Criminal Defense Attorneys | Blog and News Archives Contains a list of blog posts that were created previously. Search May 4, 1970, Four Kent State University Students Killed By Ohio National Guard - Today In Crime History Posted by Michael Buchanan on Thu, 03 May 2012 Bookmark On this date, May 4, in the year 1970, four students were killed and nine others wounded when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire during a Vietnam War protest. Approximately 67 shots were fired by the guardsmen over thirteen seconds. Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20, was shot through the mouth and killed instantly. Allison B. Krause, age 19,was shot in the chest and died later that day. William Knox Schroeder, age 19, was also shot in the chest and died almost an hour later in a hospital while undergoing surgery. Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20, was shot in her neck and died within a few minutes from loss of blood.

Among the wounded was Dean R. Kahler, who was shot in the back, causing permanent paralysis from the chest down. All of those killed or wounded were unarmed. During the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign, candidate Richard Nixon ran on a platform that promised "peace with honor" for the Vietnam War. After his election, however, on April 30, 1970, President Nixon announced during a televised speech to the nation that American forces had invaded Cambodia. Many Americans saw this new invasion as an expansion or lengthening of the Vietnam War. In response to Nixon's announcement of the invasion of Cambodia, students across the United States began to protest. Protests by students at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio began on May 1, 1970. At noon, students held a protest rally on campus and later that night rioters built a bonfire and threw beer bottles at police off campus. The mayor declared a state of emergency and the governor sent in the Ohio National Guard. On May 2, 1970, during a protest near the ROTC building on campus, someone set fire to the abandoned building. The National Guard entered the campus and used tear gas to control the crowd.

During the evening of May 3, 1970, another protest rally was held on campus which was again dispersed by the National Guard. All of these protests led up to the deadly interaction between Kent State students and the National Guard. On May 4, 1970, another student rally was scheduled for noon at the Commons on the Kent State University campus. Before the rally began, the National Guard ordered those congregated to disperse. The students refused to leave and the National Guard attempted to use tear gas on the crowd. Because of shifting winds, the tear gas was ineffective. The National Guard then advanced upon the crowd, with bayonets attached to their rifles, causing the crowd to scatter. After dispersing the crowd, the National Guardsmen stood around for about ten minutes and then turned around and began to retrace their steps. For an unknown reason, during their retreat, the National Guardsmen suddenly turned around and began firing at the still scattered students. In 13 seconds, 67 bullets were fired. Some claim that there was a verbal order to fire. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded.

Some of the students who were shot were not even part of the rally, but were just walking to their next class. The immediate impact of the shootings was dramatic and triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. The events of May 4, 1970 soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Kent State Tragedy Video Despite pressure to convene a special federal grand jury to investigate the actions of the Ohio National Guard, U.S. Attorney General George Mitchell closed his investigation of the shootings in August 1971. Under immense pressure, however, the U.S. Department of Justice reopened an investigation in August 1973 and a special federal grand jury was impaneled to investigated the shootings. On March 29, 1974, the grand jury indicted eight of the Ohio guardsmen. They were technically charged with violating the civil rights of the killed and wounded students. The indictment stated all eight guardsmen fired in the direction of demonstrators. Five of the guardsmen were accused of firing the shots - from M-1 rifles - that resulted in the deaths.

On October 21, 1974 the federal trial of the eight former National Guardsmen began in Cleveland before U.S. District Court Judge Frank J. Battisti. During the trial, the Justice Department presented 33 witnesses and 130 exhibits - mostly photographs of the events that led to the shooting of the unarmed students. The 12-member jury actually visited the Kent State campus where it heard simulated gunshots at the scene. The criminal defense attorneys for the accused guardsmen contended that they fired in self-defense. The criminal defense lawyers also argued there was insufficient evidence to convict their clients and urged the Judge to dismiss the criminal charges. On November 8, 1974, Judge Battisti agreed with the criminal defense attorneys and acquitted all of the former guardsmen. Battisti ruled that the prosecutors had failed to prove charges that the guardsmen willfully intended to deprive the students killed and wounded of their civil rights. "At best, the evidence...would support a finding that the amount of force .... was excessive and unjustified," Battisti said. The jury was not permitted to reach a verdict because the Judge ruled that the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain a criminal conviction.

To this date, not one person has ever been held criminally liable for the shootings of those Kent State University Students on May 4, 1970. Sources and more information: Kent State Shootings Kent State Shootings (Created by Constance Rambo, History 135, November 2006) Assignment American history in the 1960s and 1970s was wrought with turmoil and civil unrest as the nation was divided in a way not seen since the Civil War. As one looks at the events of this era, one major aspect stands out: the political activism of the young people on its college campuses - known as The Student Movement. Civil rights demonstrations and anti-war protests were prevalent on campuses across the nation as a gap between generations grew and old ideologies and traditional values were challenged. Oftentimes violence followed these demonstrations. No other event captures this truth more than that of the tragic shooting that took place in a little university town in Kent, Ohio in May of 1970. Assignment Explain which group(s) or individual(s) you feel played a significant part in causing this May 4th tragedy. What, if anything, could have been done differently to change the outcome of these events?

Background The events which occurred at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970 have been listed as one of the catalysts that helped turn U.S. public opinion against the Vietnam War. What started out as a peaceful protest culminated into 4 days of unrest that ended in tragedy. During the Kent State Massacre (also known as the Kent State Shootings,) 4 college students were killed and 9 others wounded when the Ohio National Guard fired shots into a crowd during an anti-war protest on campus grounds. Although many of the details of events leading up to the tragedy were unclear, the affects on a divided nation shined brightly. President Nixon’s announcement on April 30, 1970, that American troops had invaded Cambodia as a means to attack the Viet Cong headquarters spurred dissent among anti-war demonstrators. Many Americans saw this invasion as a renege on promises made by President Nixon to end the Vietnam War. On May 1st, anti-war protests were held on college campuses across the country, and Kent State University was no exception; however, the disruptions that ensued that evening incited turmoil that outlasted the 4 days of turbulence.

Sometime during that evening, a conflict at the local bars between police and protestors occurred with the result of protestors vandalizing local stores, banks and police cars, as well as starting bonfires in the streets of town. When Kent’s Mayor Satrom declared a state of emergency and ordered all bars closed and requested the assistance of the Ohio National Guard, the unrest grew. The trouble continued into the weekend as over one thousand protestors surrounded the ROTC building at Kent State University and someone set fire to the building. When protestors interfered with the ability of the firemen to fight the fire, the National Guard used tear gas and arrested protestors. As the intensity of the situation continued to grow, Ohio Governor Rhodes stated that he would declare a state of martial law. Although this declaration was never issued, both the university and guard assumed that the governor had followed through, and that the National Guard had control over the campus with all demonstrations prohibited. The turbulence peaked on May 4th, when 3000 people (approximately 1,500 demonstrators and 1,500 bystanders) gathered in the University Commons to object to the National Guard presence on campus as well as to the Vietnam War.

As the National Guard tried to disband the crowd, discord grew with rock throwing and yelling as the guards were trapped on a field for approximately 10 minutes. Only after the guards returned to the top of a hill, "twenty-eight of the more than seventy Guardsmen turned suddenly and fired" their weapons. (Lewis and Hensley, dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/LEWIHEN.htm , 2006) "A total of 67 bullets were fired" in a time frame "that lasted only thirteen seconds." ( Kent State shootings ) Innocent bystanders were among the victims, with 2 of the 4 students killed being caught in the fire while walking to class. Although 8 National Guardsmen were brought up on charges in both criminal and civil trials, criminal charges were dismissed and a jury for the civil trial found that "none of the Guardsmen were legally responsible for the shootings" ( Lewis and Hensley , 2006) due to their testimonies that they felt their safety had been threatened by the demonstrators. The State of Ohio ended further legal proceedings by settling out of court with the victims and their families, and the guardsmen issued a statement of regret concerning the incidents that occurred.

The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, which President Nixon established, "concluded that the Ohio National Guard shootings on May 4, 1970 were unjustified." ( Kent State shootings ). The consequences from the tragic events affected not only Kent State University, which closed for the rest of the semester, but the country as well.

It caused a nationwide student strike which closed hundreds of colleges and universities; it highlighted the need for law enforcement and military to develop better ways to manage conflict between its citizens; but most importantly, the events of May 4, 1970 at Kent State became a symbol of political and cultural division in America "which occurred at the height of the Vietnam War era." May 1970: College Park Explodes | Boundary Stones: WETA's Washington DC History Blog May 1970: College Park Explodes 4/27/2015 in Maryland by Patrick Kiger Student protesters face down riot police on Route 1, University of Maryland, 1970 (Photo source: University of Maryland Special Collections) The May 4, 1970 antiwar protest at Kent State University in Ohio, in which National Guard troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators protesting the Nixon Administration's invasion of Cambodia and shot four of them dead, was a traumatic event that burned itself into the American collective memory. A photo of a teenage girl crying out in shock over the body of one of the slain students became, for many, the iconic image that captured a frighteningly turbulent time.

But it's almost forgotten that the University of Maryland's flagship campus in College Park was rocked by a protest that was bigger and possibly more raucous than the one at Kent State. Thousands of demonstrators occupied and vandalized the university's Main Administration building and ROTC offices, set fires all over the campus, and blocked Route 1, the main artery into College Park. Armed with bricks, rocks and bottles, the protesters continuously skirmished with police armed with riot batons, tear gas and dogs. As the campus raged, Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel finally sent in National Guard troops in an effort to quash the uprising. Fortunately, unlike Kent State, no lives were lost at College Park. Compared to some other campuses across the nation, the University of Maryland was relatively calm throughout the 1960s. But that all changed on April 30, 1970, when the President appeared on all three TV networks to announce that he was officially expanding the Vietnam conflict into Cambodia. In truth, the U.S. had secretly begun bombing the neutral country, which was seen as a Viet Cong sanctuary, nearly a year before, and U.S. and South Vietnamese forces already had entered the country in April.

(From the PBS website, here's more background on the Cambodian war.) But Nixon's public doubling-down on the war — just 10 days after he had promised to start massive withdrawals of U.S. troops from Vietnam — stirred outrage among students. It didn't take long for UMCP to join in the tumult. On Friday, May 1, the unrest started with a noon rally in front of McKeldin Library, with speakers attacking Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia, a neutral country in the Vietnam conflict that the Pentagon saw as a communist ally. After about 45 minutes, according to a Washington Postaccount, an unidentified student got up and urged the crowed to march to the General Reckord Armory, the home of the school's ROTC program. Slowly, the crowd began moving. At the armory, students broke into the room where Air Force ROTC uniforms were stored, and began throwing them out into the crowd, chanting "Rotcee must go!" Meanwhile, upstairs, other protesters broke into ROTC offices, where they overturned desks and dumped the contents of file cabinets. By 1:15 p.m., the crowd had moved to Route 1, where they blocked traffic.

About two hours later, state troopers and Prince George's County police marched into the street in formation. They wore helmets and carried batons, and had gas masks ominously attached to their belts. The crowd dispersed, and for the next 90 minutes, the two sides stared at each other warily in a standoff. Then the crowd started moving south on Route 1, and began to block a different intersection. The police chased them and broke up the roadblock again. But the protesters didn't go away. Instead, they broke into smaller groups and ran across the campus, deflating the tires of police cars and committing other small acts of defiance. Near campus police headquarters, officers ordered students to disperse, and when they didn't, a melee ensued in which a student government leader was knocked to the ground. He was led away by police, with blood streaming from his head. By 8 p.m., the angry crowd had again reformed, and by the Post's estimate, numbered between 1,000 and 1,200. Additional police arrived on the scene, so that 250 officers were there to confront them. For several hours, the two sides stood waiting.

Then, by the Post's account, the students began bombarding the police with bottles, eggs and rocks, and the officers again charged, driving the crowd back across the campus. Tear gas was fired outside a women's dormitory, and the student protesters again fled and split up into smaller contingents. Finally, by 1 a.m., the battle had subsided enough that state police Lt. Col Tom S. Smith, who was in charge of stopping the unrest, felt comfortable enough to order his forces to head back to the university police station along Route 1. Meanwhile, at Gov. Mandel's orders, two companies of the Maryland National Guard went on standby alert. That night, about 25 people were arrested, and 50 injured. The Post called the protest "the largest and most violent in the university's history." The situation continued to boil over the next several days. On the night of May 3, with a crowd again blocking Route 1, local police and 250 state troopers showed up and arrested six of the demonstrators, and weren't able to reopen the road to traffic until 4:45 a.m.

On Monday, May 4, Mandel sent in 600 National Guardsmen to assist the police. It didn't stop things. The next day, after a morning memorial service for the slain students at Kent State and others killed in a protest at Jackson State College, an even bigger crowd of 3,000 again blocked Route 1 in the five block area between Ritchie Coliseum and College Avenue. According to a Post account, protesters improvised fortifications by filling trash cans with firewood stolen from Fraternity Row, doors, saw horses and no-parking signs ripped from their moorings. To top things off, they dragged a piece of construction equipment from campus into the middle of the road and set it on fire, sending a huge plume of black smoke into the sky. As police intelligence agents appeared on the roofs of stores, protesters pelted them with stones. Just before 5 p.m., the police, brandishing nightsticks and accompanied by K-9s that occasionally snapped at crowd members, marched into the street and cleared it. They also began firing tear gas — reportedly 100 rounds of it, so many that a stinging cloud hung over the campus, even as it began to rain.

Mandel declared a state of emergency, and put a National Guard officer, Adjudant Gen. Edwin Warfield III, in "complete command" of operations on campus. That evening, as helicopters buzzed over the campus, the beefed-up force imposed a nighttime curfew. 48 people were arrested, according to news reports.< When protesters showed up two days later at the ROTC armory, this time they were met by 20 National Guardsmen armed with M-16 rifles with unsheathed bayonets attached. But unlike Kent State, no shots were fired. Gen. Warfield wisely instructed his troops to keep their ammunition on their belts, and told them not to load it unless he gave a direct order. According to the Post, some protesters taunted the soldiers, but others "talked quietly to them or put dandelions in their rifle barrels." By early the next morning, the crowd faded away. Even so, the university administration clearly was spooked. They announced that classes would be suspended indefinitely, starting the next day, May 8. Word of that decision enraged many faculty members, and they passed a resolution condemning it and supporting the student strike.

As the Washington Post explained at the time, "The administration, in a word, had radicalized its faculty." Fearing a revolt among its own staff, the university administation backed down. On May 11, the protesters again rose up. At 2 p.m., after a rally, about 500 of them marched to the ROTC armory and occupied the gymnasium. Then they moved to block Route 1 once again. Windows were broken, and protesters set a fire inside the Shoemaker Building on campus. By May 12, things had calmed down enough that University of Maryland chancellor Charles E. Bishop could show up on campus and give a speech entitled "The State of the University." The Washington Post reported that on the mall, "hundreds of students were busying themselves studying, playing with Frisbees, or sleeping in the sun." But that normality was enforced by 1,100 National Guard troops who remained poised just off campus, as a deterrent to anyone who wanted to rekindle the protest. Here's a more detailed account of the protests, written by campus radicals themselves.

Tags Kent State 1970 President?s Commission on Campus Unrest Conclusions regarding Kent State University 1970 ???? "Kent State was a national tragedy. It was not, however, a unique tragedy. Only the magnitude of the student disorder and the extent of student deaths and injuries set it apart from similar occurrences on numerous other American campuses during the past few years. We must learn from the particular horror of Kent State and insure that it is never repeated. ???? The conduct of many students and nonstudent protesters at Kent State on the first four days of May 1970 was plainly intolerable. We have said in our report, and we repeat: Violence by students on or off the campus can never be justified by any grievance, philosophy, or political idea. There can be no sanctuary or immunity from prosecution on the campus. Criminal acts by students must be treated as such wherever they occur and whatever their purpose. Those who wrought havoc on the town of Kent, those who burned the ROTC building, those who attacked and stoned National Guardsmen, and all those who urged them on and applauded their deeds share the responsibility for the deaths and injuries of May 4. ????

The widespread student opposition to the Cambodian action and their general resentment of the National Guardsmen's presence on the campus cannot justify the violent and irresponsible actions of many students during the long weekend. The Cambodian invasion defined a watershed in the attitude of Kent students toward American policy in the Indochina war. ????Kent State had experienced no major turmoil during the preceding year, and no disturbances comparable in scope to the events of May had ever occurred on the campus. Some students thought the Cambodian action was an unacceptable contradiction of the announced policy of gradual withdrawal from Vietnam, or that the action constituted invasion of a neutral country, or that it would prolong rather than shorten the war. Opposition to the war appears to have been the principal issue around which students rallied during the first two days of May. ????Thereafter, the presence of the National Guard on campus was the focus of discontent. The Guard's presence appears to have been the main attraction and the main issue for most students who came to the May 4 rally. For students deeply opposed to the war, the Guard was a living symbol of the military system they opposed.

For other students, the Guard was an outsider on their campus, prohibiting all their rallies, even peaceful ones, ordering them about, and tear gassing them when they refused to obey. ????The May 4 rally began as a peaceful assembly on the Commons -- the traditional site of student assemblies. Even if the Guard had authority to prohibit a peaceful gathering -- a question that is at least debatable --the decision to disperse the noon rally was a serious error. The timing and manner of the dispersal were disastrous. Many students were legitimately in the area as they went to and from class. The rally was held during the crowded noontime luncheon period. The rally was peaceful, and there was no apparent impending violence. Only when the Guard attempted to disperse the rally did some students react violently. ????Under these circumstances, the Guard's decision to march through the crowd for hundreds of yards up and down a hill was highly questionable. The crowd simply swirled around them and reformed again after they had passed. The Guard found itself on a football practice field far removed from its supply base and running out of tear gas.

Guardsmen had been subjected to harassment and assault, were hot and tired, and felt dangerously vulnerable by the time they returned to the top of Blanket Hill. When they confronted the students, it was only too easy for a single shot to trigger a general fusillade. ????Many students considered the Guard's march from the ROTC ruins across the Commons up Blanket Hill, down to the football practice field, and back to Blanket Hill as a kind of charade. Tear gas canisters were tossed back and forth to the cheers of the crowd, many of whom acted as if they were watching a game. ????Lt. Alexander D. Stevenson, a platoon leader of Troop G, described the crowd in these words: ?????At the time of the firing, the crowd was acting like this whole thing was a circus. The crowd must have thought that the National Guard was harmless. They were having fun with the Guard. The circus was in town.? ???? The actions of some students were violent and criminal and those of some others were dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible. The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable. ????

The National Guardsmen on the Kent State campus were armed with loaded M-l rifles, high-velocity weapons with a horizontal range of almost two miles. As they confronted the students, all that stood between a guardsman and firing was the flick of a thumb on the safety mechanism, and the pull of an index finger on the trigger. When firing began, the toll taken by these lethal weapons was disastrous. ????The Guard fired amidst great turmoil and confusion, engendered in part by their own activities. But the guardsmen should not have been able to kill so easily in the first place. The general issuance of loaded weapons to law enforcement officers engaged in controlling disorders is never justified except in the case of armed resistance that trained sniper teams are unable to handle. This was not the case at Kent State, yet each guardsman carried a loaded M-l rifle. ????This lesson is not new. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the guidelines of the Department of the Army set it out explicitly. ????No one would have died at Kent State if this lesson had been learned by the Ohio National Guard. Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.

Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators. Our entire report attempts to define the lessons of Kent State, lessons that the Guard, police, students, faculty, administrators, government at all levels, and the American people must learn-and begin, at once, to act upon. We commend it to their attention." Alan Canfora expert, May 4, 1970, Kent State, eyewitness, casualty, massacre, tragedy, shootings, incident, Kent, Ohio May 1-4, 1970 events timeline KENT STATE UNIVERSITY: May 1-4, 1970, timeline of events written by students of the May 4 Task Force at Kent State University: On April 30th, President Nixon announced on national television that a massive American-South Vietnamese troop offensive into Cambodia was in progress.

"We take these actions," Nixon said, "not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam, and winning the just peace we all desire." These were familiar words to a war-weary public. Some felt that this decision was essential for attaining a "just peace" and sustaining America's credibility in the world. Yet others, particularly students, believed that this action represented an escalation of the war and a return to ex-President Johnson's earlier hopes for a military victory. As the fires from the artillery began to burn in Cambodia, a raging fire of protest spread across the United States. At Kent State University, the reaction to Nixon's announcement was similar to that of other campuses across the nation. FRIDAY MAY 1, 1970 At noon about 500 students gathered around the Victory Bell on the Commons, the traditional site for rallies. A group of history students, who had organized the protest, buried a copy of the Constitution, which they claimed had been murdered when US troops were sent into Cambodia without a declaration of war by Congress. Three hours later, Black United Students held a rally, which had been scheduled before Nixon had made his announcement.

Some 400 people gathered to hear black students talk about recent disorders with the Ohio National Guard on their campus. Word spread quickly that another rally, one to oppose the invasion of Cambodia, was scheduled for Monday, May 4, at noon. Friday night, one of the first warm evenings of the spring, several hundred students gathered in downtown Kent in an area with a number of bars, known as "the Strip," on North Water Street. A spontaneous anti-war rally began in the street. Twice, while the rally was in progress, passing police cruisers were hit with beer bottles. Afterwards, police stayed away from the area. Meanwhile, more people were leaving the bars. Many in the crowd chanted anti-war slogans, and a bonfire was set in the street. The crowd blocked traffic for about an hour and then moved toward the center of town. Some members of the crowd began to break windows. Primarily "political targets" were attacked, including banks, loan companies, and utility companies. After being informed of the events, Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom declared a "state of emergency," and arbitrarily ordered all of the bars closed. Kent police, along with the mayor, then confronted the crowd.

The riot act was read and police proceeded to clear the area. People inside the bars were ordered to leave, forcing hundreds more into the streets. The crowd was herded toward the campus with tear gas and knight sticks, which was in the opposite direction in which some of them lived. Fourteen persons, mostly stragglers, were arrested. About $5000 in damage was done as 43 windows were broken--28 in one bank. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1970 On the morning of May 2, some KSU students assisted with the downtown cleanup. Rumors of radical activities were widespread, and KSU's ROTC building was believed to be the target of militant students that evening. During the Vietnam War, students on many college campuses opposed the presence of ROTC and often were successful in forcing the removal of ROTC from their campuses. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on the city of Kent, and students were restricted to the campus. At 5 p.m., shortly after assessing the situation, Mayor Satrom alerted the Ohio National Guard. KSU officials were unaware of this decision.

Shortly after 8 p.m., about 300 people gathered on the Commons, where a few anti-war slogans were chanted and a few brief speeches given. An impromptu march began and participants headed towards the dormitories to gain strength. Large numbers of people joined the march. The now 2,000 marches swarmed the hill overlooking the Commons and crossed the Commons. Then they surrounded the ROTC building, an old wooden World War II barracks which was scheduled to be demolished. Windows were broken and a few persons eventually set the building on fire. Plain-clothed police who were standing nearby made no attempt to stop the students at this point. Firemen arrived on the scene but their actions were abandoned because some of the crowd attacked the firemen and slashed their hoses. The blaze quickly died out. The firemen eventually regained control and the fire died out. The building was ignited again. This time, however, firemen arrived with massive police protection. Police surrounded the building and dispersed the students with tear gas. The firemen again got the fire under control. The crowd then moved to the front of the campus. The students retreated to the Commons to find the ROTC building smoldering at both ends.

Within minutes, the building was fully ablaze. The crowd then assembled on the wooded hillside beside the commons and watched as the building burned. Many shouted anti- war slogans. In the first two weeks of May, thirty ROTC buildings would be burned nationwide. Armed with tear gas and drawn bayonets, the guard pursued students, protesters and bystanders alike, into dormitories and other campus buildings. Some stones were thrown and at least one student was bayoneted. The question of who set the fire that destroyed ROTC building has never been satisfactorily answered by any investigative body. SUNDAY, MAY 3, 1970 May 3 was a relatively quiet day. By now, however, the campus was fully occupied by Ohio National Guard troops, and armored personnel carriers were stationed throughout the campus. Although some students and guardsmen fraternized, the feeling, for the most part, was one of mutual hostility. That morning, Ohio Governor James Rhodes, who was running for US Senate, arrived in Kent and along with city officials, held a news conference. Rhodes, running on a "law and order" platform, attempted to use this opportunity to garner votes in the primary election, which was only two days away.

In a highly inflammatory speech, Rhodes claimed that the demonstrations at Kent were the handiwork of a highly organized band of revolutionaries who were out to "destroy higher education in Ohio." These protesters, Rhodes declared, were "the worst type of people we harbor in America, worse than the brown shirts and the communist element...we will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent!" Later that evening, a National Guard commander would tell his troops that Ohio law gave them the right to shoot if necessary. This merely served to heighten guardsmen's hostility toward students. Around 8 p.m., a crowd gathered on the Commons near the Victory Bell. As the group increased in size, Guard officials announced the immediate enforcement of a new curfew. The crowd refused to disperse. At 9 p.m. the Ohio Riot act was read. Tear gas was fired from helicopters hovering overhead, and the Guard dispersed the crowd from the area. Students attempted to demonstrate that the curfew was unnecessary by peacefully marching towards the town, but were met by guardsmen. Students then staged a spontaneous sit-in at the intersection of East Main and Lincoln Streets and demanded that Mayor Satrom and KSU president Robert White speak with them about the Guard's presence on campus.

Assured that this demand would be met, the crowd agreed to move from the street onto the front lawn of campus. The guard then betrayed the students and announced that the curfew would go into effect immediately. Helicopters and tear gas were used to disperse the demonstrators. As the crowd attempted to escape, some were bayoneted and clubbed by guardsmen. Students were again pursued and prodded back to their dormitories. Tear gas innundated the campus, and helicopters with searchlights hovered overhead all night. MONDAY, MAY 4, 1970 At 11 a.m., about 200 students gathered on the Commons. Earlier that morning, state and local officials had met in Kent. Some officials had assumed that Gov. Rhodes had declared Martial Law to be in effect--but he had not. In fact, martial law was not officially declared until May 5. Nevertheless, the National Guard resolved to disperse any assembly. As noon approached, the size of the crowd increased to 1,500. Some were merely spectators, while others had gathered specifically to protest the invasion of Cambodia and the continued presence of the National Guard on the campus.

Upon orders of Ohio's Assistant Adjutant General Robert Canterbury, an army jeep was driven in front of the assembled students. The students were told by means of a bullhorn to disperse immediately. Students responded with jeers and chants. When the students refused to disperse, Gen. Canterbury ordered the guardsmen to disperse them. Approximately 116 men, equipped with loaded M-1 rifles and tear gas, formed a skirmish line towards the students. Aware of bayonet injuries of the previous evening, students immediately ran away from the attacking National Guardsmen. Retreating up Blanket Hill, some students lobbed tear gas canisters back at the advancing troops, and one straggler was attacked with clubs. The Guard, after clearing the Commons, marched over the crest of the hill, firing tear gas and scattering the students into a wider area. The Guard then continued marching down the hill and onto a practice football field. For approximately 10 minutes, the guard stayed in this position. During this time, tear gas canisters were thrown back and forth from the Guard's position to a small group of students n the Prentice Hall parking lot, about 100 yards away.

Some students responded to the guardsmen's attack by throwing stones. Guardsmen also threw stones at the students. But because of the distance, most stones from both parties fell far short of their targets. The vast majority of students, however, were spectators on the veranda of Taylor Hall. While on the practice field, several members of Troop G, which would within minutes fire the fatal volley, knelt and aimed their weapons at the students in the parking lot. Gen. Canterbury concluded that the crowd had been dispersed and ordered the Guard to march back to the commons area. Some members of Troop G then huddled briefly. After reassembling on the field, the Guardsmen seemed to begin to retreat as they marched back up the hill, retracing their previous steps. Members of Troop G, while advancing up the hill, continued to glance back to the parking lot, where the most militant and vocal students were located. The students assumed the confrontation was over. Many students began to walk to their next classes.

As the guard reached the crest of the Blanket Hill, near the Pagoda of Taylor Hall, about a dozen members of Troop G simultaneously turned around 180 degrees, aimed and fired their weapons into the crowd in the Prentice Hall parking lot. The 1975 civil trials proved that there was a verbal command to fire. A total of 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds. Four students: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were killed. Nine students were wounded: Joseph Lewis, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Robbie Stamps, Donald Scott MacKenzie, Alan Canfora, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell and Dean Kahler. Of the wounded, one was permanently paralyzed, and several were seriously maimed. All were full-time students. Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face - News – Forward.com Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face At 11 p.m. on May 3, a group of marchers will begin a candlelight vigil at Kent State University in Ohio to recall what is for many a distant echo from another era.

COURTESy OF KENT STATE UNIVERSITy ?The Day the War Came Home?: Clockwise from top left, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer and Jeffrey Miller were killed when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students and bystanders during campus anti-war protests on May 4, 1970. The shootings came after some students hurled rocks at the soldiers. Email The killing of four unarmed students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a national wave of campus protests against the Vietnam War will have its 40th anniversary this year. And as they have every year since 1971, those honoring the students’ memory will circle the area where the demonstrations took place and end up in the parking lot where they were killed. There, the gathering will hear students from the campus Hillel recite the Kaddish. The Jewish prayer for the dead has been recited regularly at this annual event since the early 1980s — a reflection of the fact that three of the “four dead in Ohio” famously memorialized in song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were Jewish.

Neither at the time of the shootings nor since has anyone looked closely at this odd fact — one that seems odder still for a campus where Jews have never made up more than 5% of those enrolled. Karen Weinberger, a sorority sister of Sandra Scheuer, one of the slain, recalled that back then “it wasn’t anything that was really of great significance. The significance was the fact that you had four students that died and nine that were injured.” But if the shootings themselves were not a Jewish tragedy, the first commemorations of them were overwhelmingly so. “What happened that day was not a Jewish event,” said Tom Sudow, an alumnus who transferred to Kent State in the fall of 1973. “The response to May 4 in a lot of ways, though, became a Jewish event.” Today, the killings are memorialized by no fewer than four separate markers at and around the site. They convey official recognition of what happened there by everyone from the campus administration to the federal government, to the Ohio Historical Society. But in 1971, as the first anniversary of the killings approached, there were no plans to do anything to note the date’s passing.

The war in Vietnam was still raging, Richard Nixon was still president, and Kent State seemed unwilling to confront its recent bloody history. “It wasn’t, ‘Cover up,’” Sudow recalled. “It was, ‘If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.’” JOHN FILO/GETTY IMAGES ?Four Dead in Ohio?: Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller during an anti-war demonstration on May 4, 1970. Email It was the campus Jewish community that stepped up then. “Hillel was very involved and had a prominent role in commemorating the lives of the four students lost,” said Jennifer Chestnut, the current executive director of Hillel at Kent State. The Kent State Hillel back then was housed in a rented apartment and had a staff of one: Rabbi Gerald Turk. A charismatic Orthodox rabbi known for his Bukharan yarmulke and his out-of-the-box programming, Turk led the effort to place a simple plaque bearing the names of the four victims on the ground of the parking lot where they died. Dedicated May 4, 1971, it was the first physical marker of the deaths on campus.

In 1974, the plaque was stolen and later returned, riddled with bullet holes. A granite replacement was rededicated by a group of faculty members on May 4, 1975. It remained the only physical memorial on campus until 1990, when the university administration dedicated its own memorial. The Jewish community on campus still commemorates the events of May 4, often in the context of universitywide events. The candlelight walk and vigil — one of the most distinctive elements of the annual May 4 commemoration — exemplify this. Initiated in 1971 by then assistant professor of sociology Jerry Lewis, the yearly walk begins in the area of the campus where the protests took place, and ends at midnight in the parking lot where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were killed. The midnight vigil continues, in 30-minute shifts, until 12:24 p.m. on May 4 — the exact time of the shootings. Lewis, now a professor emeritus, has tried, by his own account, to keep the walk and vigil simple.

But he did allow for one significant addition: “In the early 1980s, Rabbi Turk came to me and said, ‘Do you mind if I say Kaddish?’ I said, ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ because I knew that three of the students were of the Jewish tradition.” In the meantime, as tempers have cooled, many of the questions about what happened then have been resolved, but not all. When Nixon announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970, students on campuses across the country protested. At Kent State, students broke windows of some of the businesses in the city of Kent. And at 5 p.m. the next day, amid rumors of plans to destroy the ROTC building on the campus, the mayor of Kent summoned the National Guard. The ROTC building did go up in flames Saturday evening, May 2, and the guardsmen then cleared students from the area, using tear gas and bayonets. The next day, Ohio Governor James Rhodes visited the campus — by then wholly occupied by the Guard. Rhodes, who was in a tough race for the Republican nomination to the U.S.

Senate, gave a speech designed to cement his position as a law-and-order candidate. He called the students who rioted “worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element,” and promised to use “whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.” On Monday, May 4, at a noontime protest, demonstrators defied dispersal orders from the guardsmen, with some of the students hurling rocks at them from a distance. After an extended standoff, 28 guardsmen fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at a group of unarmed student demonstrators and nearby bystanders. Four were killed; nine were wounded. Protesters Krause and Miller were both Jewish. Scheuer and Schroeder, were bystanders, Scheuer being the third Jew.

In September 1970, a federal panel established to investigate the Kent State deaths — as well as the killing of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi and campus unrest nationwide —condemned the “indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students” at Kent State as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.” In the years since, numerous articles, books, government inquiries, TV specials and films have attempted to answer some of the difficult questions about “the day the Vietnam War came home.” Were students armed, as was initially reported? (No.) Were guardsmen ordered to fire? (It appears that they were — though no individual was ever clearly identified or held accountable for giving the order.) Were so-called outside agitators responsible for inciting the students to protest?

(Possibly, but every one of the dead and wounded was a full-time Kent State student.) Alan Canfora, a Kent State alumnus who was among the wounded protesters, recalled, “There were about 500 protesters there, and another 1,500 bystanders.” That three of the slain were Jews, he said, was “just an extremely unlikely mathematical probability.” No one believes they were — or could have been — especially targeted. Few beyond the Kent State campus know about the Jewish connection to the events of May 4. But in 1970, at least some American Jews were aware of their connection to Krause, Miller and Scheuer. “I heard from so many people,” said Elaine Holstein, Miller’s mother, “and I know there were people in the Jewish community. Most people were very supportive.” Canfora, as director of the Kent May 4 Center, for years has been collecting materials related to the shooting. When the Krause and Scheuer families invited him to retrieve materials from their houses for his archive in the 1990s, he found “numerous letters from synagogues across the country” among the papers.

Each family had also received “hundreds of certificates,” Canfora said, “where members of the Jewish community across our country had purchased a tree in Israel and planted it in memory of our martyrs.” In recent years, the university has become more comfortable with the legacy of May 4. At the urging of students, faculty and alumni, Kent State has established a number of memorials to the slain and wounded students. Earlier this year, part of the campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And later this year, the university will open the May 4 Visitors Center, which tells about the history of the university’s darkest day. But to all this, Doris Krause, whose daughter, Allison, was 19 when she was killed, responded as any mother would. “I wish it weren’t so,” she said. Contact Jonah Lowenfeld at feedback@forward.com The Forward's independent journalism depends on donations from readers like you. Jonah Lowenfeld Your Comments The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, The Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles.

Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not and will be deleted. Egregious commenters will be banned from commenting. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, our spam filter prevents most links and certain key words from being posted and the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason. University, community evolve under shadow of Kent State shootings | TribLIVE University, community evolve under shadow of Kent State shootings Sign up for one of our email newsletters. In 13 seconds, everything changed. Four families lost their children. Nine students were riddled with shrapnel. A college campus in Ohio is forever linked to those seconds on May 4, 1970. When the gunfire at Kent State University ended, a nation was left stunned and asking how it could have happened. In the 40 years since members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire at a common area full of students, law enforcement, society and the government have made significant changes. Eighteen-year-olds gained the right to vote, different crowd control methods were developed -- in part because of what happened at Kent State -- and students were given a greater voice at universities.

"It was a moment that brought home for a lot of people that the nation was in a profound crisis, that young people in uniform were shooting and killing people on the college campuses," said Angus Johnston, a professor at City University of New York and a student activism historian. The events that led to the shootings began May 1 when students protested the government's decision to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Violence that night prompted Kent's mayor to ask Ohio Gov. James Rhodes to call in the National Guard. Troops arrived the evening of May 2 after protesters burned the campus ROTC building. Two days later, troops patrolling a noontime anti-war rally fired 67 rounds, killing four students: Allison Krause of Churchill; Jeffrey Miller of Plainview, N.Y; Sandra Scheuer of Boardman, Ohio; and William Schroeder of Lorain, Ohio. Krause and Miller were taking part in the protest. Scheuer and Schroeder were walking to class when they were shot. Shockwave News of the shootings reverberated at college campuses across the country. Millions of students staged walkouts, and campuses shut down.

Marty Kurta, 62, of North Union, Fayette County, was a senior at Kent State. He had taken part in protests but was not in the rally that afternoon. "All of us were in shock," said Kurta, now an insurance broker. He said campus life stopped after the shootings. "Everything was disrupted," he said. "People literally ran from the town to go home. It became a ghost town." Hempfield resident Gilbert Gall was a freshman that spring at Wayne State University in Michigan, a commuter college for working-class students. Gall, 59, a Detroit native who works as a union organizer for the Pennsylvania State Education Association office in Hunker, said the campus closed for two days after the shootings. When classes resumed, professors set aside course work to talk about what had happened at Kent. "For younger people, college-aged people, it had the same type of shock impact as the Robert Kennedy assassination and the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination," Gall said. "It seemed as though the power structure was turning against students." The deaths at Kent State changed student activism, Johnston said.

With the voting age set at 21 in the 1960s, he said, students had no other outlet but to stage mass protests. A year after Kent State, the age was lowered to 18, and protests gave way to organizing voter drives. Universities started to include students in campus governance, Johnston said. Black student unions, women's studies courses and gay and lesbian groups formed to give students a voice. Now, as then, many student protests focus on issues that directly impact them, such as recent rallies across the country to protest reductions in state funding for higher education. The scale of the Vietnam War, the military draft and the high number of casualties drove the 1960s anti-war protests. With today's volunteer military, students are less motivated to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the same scale, Johnston said. "It's very easy to be lulled by this sort of pop culture mythology of the 1960s and to see the 1960s as this moment in time that was different than anything before and anything since," he said.

"There has always been student protest, there has always been student agitation, and there's certainly a huge amount of it going on today." Keeping the memory alive At Kent State, it's the students who commemorate the shootings. In 1975, when the university decided to stop commemorations, students formed the May 4th Task Force. For the 40th anniversary, the group is sponsoring a conference on student activism leading up to Tuesday's commemoration. Krista Napp, 21, a junior from Conneaut, Ohio, has two connections to May 4th. She is co-chairwoman of the task force, and her father was in the Ohio National Guard in 1970. Napp said she believes it's important to keep the memory of the shootings in the minds of all Americans, not just those alive 40 years ago. "We need to learn from the history," she said. "We need to be the voices for the four students who were killed that day." Napp's father was almost sent to Kent that weekend. Instead, he remained with Guardsmen patrolling a workers strike near Akron.

"He always lets me know to remember that there's two sides to the story, but he's very supportive," Napp said. "We have discussed it, and he always let me know that he doesn't think the Guard really meant to fire." Lasting effect For the National Guard and law enforcement in general, Kent State contributed to major changes in crowd control tactics, said Maj. Gregory Babcock, deputy provost marshal for the National Guard Bureau. Babcock said the Guard now trains for crowd management, not crowd control, and has a specific force trained to handle domestic situations. Troops learn crowd psychology and are taught how to talk to protesters. They have a number of weapons -- chemical sprays, Tasers, rubber bullets and acoustic devices -- that are less lethal than rifles with live ammunition. Even riot uniforms -- from helmets and shields to knee and shoulder pads -- have changed. "A brick can be thrown at me, and I won't be hurt, so I won't respond as quickly or as harshly as I would have before," Babcock said. Kent State has undergone many changes in its approach to remembering the shooting. A gymnasium annex eventually was built near where students were shot, and new students must take an orientation course on the event.

The shooting site recently was added to the National Register of Historic Places. A walking tour has been instituted, and a visitors center is being built. Kent State's Center for Applied Conflict Management opened in 1971 as a memorial to those killed. It offers the largest undergraduate degree program in peace and conflict studies in the country for the 1,100 students enrolled. "To this day, people come here because they're driving down I-80 and they see the sign for Kent State," she said. "And before they know it, they're here, and they tell you what it meant to them."

Question: What university summoned the National Guard after protesters set the ROTC building on fire on May 2, 1970?
Answer: Kent State